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Don Gauvreau used to graze, snacking on small amounts of food throughout the day. Not any more.

“A lot of nutritionists and diet counsellors recommend that people eat small, frequent meals throughout the day, said Gauvreau. “And maybe common sense would tell you that keeping your portions small and constantly eating is going to elevate your metabolism and help you lose weight.

Popular wisdom for the past decade has been that eating frequently accelerates the metabolism and stabilizes blood sugar.

Are diet counsellors getting it wrong?

“The research is starting to show that every time you eat it’s going to increase your insulin, one of the most powerful hormones in the body,” said Gauvreau. “Eating also suppresses growth hormone, which stimulates fat burning.”

“Those small portions might help control your calorie intake but they suppress fat-burning systems,” he said.

Gauvreau now eats according to a schedule that includes two fasting periods each day, lasting about eight hours each. One between breakfast and dinner — no lunch at all — and then again while he sleeps.

He maintains a weight about four kilos lighter than in his grazing days, while eating the same healthy whole foods as before.

Recent research from the University of B.C. and the Salk Institute in California suggest weight control may be as closely related to when we eat as it is to how much we eat.

At least in mice.

UBC researchers, while studying the effect of insulin on pancreatic cells in mice, inadvertently discovered that normal mice fed a high-fat, high-calorie diet became obese, while mice bred to produce half the normal amount of insulin stayed lean.

The low-insulin mice were protected from obesity and the ailments that accompany it because they spent more time in a low-insulin condition that mimics fasting, according to James Johnson, an associate professor of cellular and physiological sciences at UBC.

Both groups ate the same food in the same amounts, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal Cell Metabolism.

The rich diet caused normal mice to produce too much insulin, which triggers weight gain, liver disease and inflammation, which is what you would expect. But not so for the low-insulin mice.

Johnson believes that extending the time between meals could help to return insulin to healthier levels for longer periods through the day, causing fat cells to burn energy rather than store it.

Eating between meals short-circuits that process, he said.

“We have constant access to very calorie-dense foods like soft drinks and 500-calorie lattes,” said Johnson. “We can take in with just a few sips what our ancestors would consume in a whole day.”

Another study published earlier this year, also in Cell Metabolism, lends credence to Johnson’s conclusions.

Scientists at the Salk Institute found that mice fed a high-fat, high-calorie diet for eight hours followed by a 16-hour fast maintained a normal weight.

A second group of mice that ate the same diet in the same amount, but spread over 24 hours, became obese and suffered from high cholesterol, high blood sugar and other obesity-related ailments. Without an extended break from feeding, the mice appeared unable to process all the fat, cholesterol and glucose they had consumed.

“I think [the Salk] study is exactly the same result that we got,” said Johnson. “I suspect the obesity they observed is due to the hypersecretion of insulin.”

The mice were allowed to eat small amounts day and night.

“That leads to insulin levels that are chronically high and promotes obesity,” he said.

The feed-and-fast mice had more opportunity to maintain normal insulin levels for long periods of time, which promotes energy-burning rather than storage.

“The timing of food intake is critical,” he said.

Again, for mice.

“You aren’t supposed to eat until you are hungry,” said Sheila Innis, a nutrition and metabolism researcher at UBC.

Innis believes the debate over fasting and grazing simply overshadows the more obvious problem, that people eat too much and don’t move around enough.

“Grazing” on a 600-calorie muffin and a 500-calorie latte isn’t going to help anyone lose weight, she said. “It simply won’t work, that’s more calories in a snack than you should have in a meal. Humans can’t do that.”

“Bottom line is you can’t overeat,” said Innis, who does not take dietary advice from rodents.

Basic scientific research, no matter how important or intriguing, does not give us permission to overeat.

“Worrying about insulin or meal timing is fine-tuning that is irrelevant when the car is headed in the wrong direction,” she said. “If you want to reduce your body weight, you’ve got to stop eating so much. Eat less, move more.”

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